FaithWorld

(Participants in the annual March for Life rally pass the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, January 25, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Anti-abortion activists marched in Washington on Friday to protest the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal in the United States 40 years ago.

Condemning abortion as an abuse of human rights, people from across the country participated in the March for Life that takes place annually in the nation’s capital. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling on January 22, 1973, legalized abortion.

Marchers carrying signs that read “Defend Life” and “De-fund Planned Parenthood” crowded the National Mall in freezing temperatures to hear politicians and activists reject abortion and say that opposition to it was rising.

(Thousands rally on the National Mall for the start of the annual March for Life rally in Washington, January 25, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst )

If you thought the Delhi gang rape would cause a serious debate on women’s rights in India, you'd be half right. Let's look at the other half: last December's brutal incident seems to have put a spell on India’s politicians, holy men and otherwise educated people.

From suggesting that the rape victim should have called her rapists “brother” to blaming her stars, plenty of reasons cited for the crime lay the blame on the women whom men brutalise, or portray women in ways that reveal our skewed attitude toward women and their place in our society. When given an opportunity to figure out ways to improve the  education and behaviour of men, and thus try to reduce the  number of rapes that occur in India, many people revert to the  more traditional method: limit the rights of women.

This is a partial list compiled by me and Robert MacMillan. Please suggest more. We'll keep updating this as long as we have to...

(Twitter symbol at the  GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 14, 2011. REUTERS/Albert Gea )

A French court on Thursday ordered Twitter Inc to help identify the authors of anti-Semitic posts or face fines of 1,000 euros ($1,300) per day, as the social network firm comes under renewed pressure to combat racist and extremist messages.

The order, requested by a Jewish student union and rights groups, concerned anti-Semitic material but could open the floodgates to legal pursuit of Twitter users who post a wide range of messages deemed illegal or offensive.

(An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man (L) stands near polling station staff members as they check his identity book at a polling station in Jerusalem January 22, 2013. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

Powerful political players for years, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties must now reckon with a new force ushered in by voters bent on stripping them of perks they have relied on for decades.

Centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party came a surprise second in Tuesday’s parliamentary election, usurping ultra-Orthodox groups Shas and United Torah Judaism from their long-standing role of kingmakers in coalition negotiations.

(Sunni Muslim Salafist leader Ahmad al-Assir (R) poses with a snowboarder in Faraya ski area, in Mount Lebanon, January 24, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir)

It’s ski season in Lebanon and everyone’s hitting the slopes.

But when the country’s most controversial Sunni Muslim cleric took a convoy of supporters out for the day and was blocked by angry Christian protesters, many feared the trip could be the spark that would reignite Lebanon’s sectarian flames.

The long-bearded and bespectacled cleric Ahmed al-Assir, known for his inflammatory speeches and clashes with Shi’ite militants, took 10 buses on Thursday from his Sunni stronghold in the Mediterranean city of Sidon to Faraya, one of Lebanon’s ski resorts.

(Pope Benedict XVI posts his first tweet using an iPad tablet after his Wednesday general audience in Paul VI’s Hall at the Vatican December 12, 2012. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano)

Pope Benedict urged Catholics on Thursday to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to win converts, as he launched his own smartphone app streaming live footage of his speeches.

The websites – often associated with endless postings of idle gossip and baby photos – could be used as “portals of truth and faith” in an increasingly secular age, the pontiff said in his 2013 World Communications Day message.

(Ken Smolka, who was abused by a priest as a child, speaks during a news conference with other victims and supporters of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, January 22, 2013. REUTERS/Bret Hartman)

Victims of pedophile priests have called  for renewing a criminal investigation into the role of Catholic Church leaders in Los Angeles, including Cardinal Roger Mahony, in covering up child sexual abuse as revealed in newly released Church records.

Documents made public on Monday showed that Mahony, then archbishop of the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese, worked with a top adviser to shield known molesters in the clergy from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s.

(A Sabah Christian reads from a prayer book with an Arabic word “Allah” in reference to God, at a church in Tambunan September 16, 2012. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad)

Malaysia’s Bar Council said on Wednesday an independent member of parliament should be prosecuted on grounds he called for the mass burning of Bibles as religious tensions flare ahead of a tight election which must be held within months.

Ibrahim Ali, the head of Perkasa, a group that champions rights of the ethnic Malay Muslim majority and has close links to the ruling coalition, was reported in media as advocating Muslims should seize and burn copies of Bibles which use the word “Allah” to refer to God.

(The Leipzig Disputation of 1519 between Martin Luther (R) and Catholic theologian Johannes Eck (L), by Julius Hübner) 

Two leading Lutheran clerics have rejected suggestions from the Vatican that it could create a subdivision for converted Lutherans similar to its structures for Anglicans who join the Roman Catholic Church.

The dispute, concerning tiny numbers of believers but major issues in ecumenical relations, comes as the churches mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this week.

(An Israeli soldier walks towards a voting booth to cast her ballot at a polling station in a military base in southern Israel January 21, 2013. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun )

An Israeli panel weighed a request on Sunday to disqualify a candidate of a powerful far-right party from running in a January 22 election for alluding in a speech to the possibility of seeing one of Islam’s holiest shrines in Jerusalem “blown up.”

The controversy is over a United States-born parliamentary nominee with the pro-settler Jewish Home party, one of the more serious contenders against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though polls still predict he will win Tuesday’s vote.